| Summary: | International humanitarian law (IHL) strives to improve and protect human dignity during the most
tumultuous periods known to mankind. As such, every endeavour to strengthen and enhance the
functioning of this branch of law must be pursued and supported. The ICRC Study on Customary
International Humanitarian Law (CIHL) was precisely such an endeavour. This Study found that
very many IHL rules have been subsumed by CIHL, thus applying irrespective of treaty ratification,
and that the rules applicable in international armed conflicts were converging with those applicable
in non-international armed conflicts. However, this Study and its attendant literature have refrained
from returning to a theoretical reconsideration of the normative foundation of IHL and, by
extension, CIHL. The present dissertation aims to fill this theoretical lacuna and, in the process, to
re-establish natural law principles and, in particular, considerations of humanity, as the raison d'être
of and motivating factor for IHL. Accordingly, the dissertation pursues the natural law principle of
humanity through its practical and theoretical development, before investigating its possible
application through the Martens clause, norms of ius cogens and obligations erga omnes. Since the
objective is to elucidate the essential foundation of IHL to better comprehend its customary source,
the interconnectedness between IHL, CIHL and natural law principles, like humanity, is
emphasised. In the process, the dissertation also enters the debate regarding the necessary
methodological approach for CIHL ascertainment and postulates a normative, transcendental
approach in this regard. Subsequently, the ICRC Study on CIHL is evaluated through the natural
law paradigm established in the dissertation, which seemingly has not yet occurred in international
legal literature.
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